| 1. A Sense of Truth by Frank Blackwell page 1 |
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Peter Kenna completed A Hard God in 1973 and has referred to it as 'the play I had been wanting to write for fifteen years'1. It was the first play of the trilogy The Cassidy Album (comprising A Hard God, Furtive Love and An Eager Hope) and the reputation
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| 2. A Sense of Truth by Frank Blackwell page 2 |
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This distinction between realism and naturalism is a useful one, and points to a particular characteristic of Kenna's writing which has not always been identified by his critics. This is his use of what he calls 'organic art, or making plays out of the th
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| 3. A Sense of Truth by Frank Blackwell page 3 |
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Dan does not begin to 'see', and as his physical sight deteriorates, and as the personal demands on him of his family accumulate, he finds words which express his growing doubts in the dogma of the Church, along with the one unshakable tenet of his faith
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| 4. A Sense of Truth by Frank Blackwell page 4 |
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Paddy suggests that the city might be responsible for the change in their fortunes, and Martin moves into a sustained aria which recalls the Saturday night dances of their rural youth. There follows a loving, gentle communion which effectively translates
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| 5. A Sense of Truth by Frank Blackwell page 5 |
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The final scene of the play, in which the parallel strands are formally drawn together, presents a mother and a son unaware of the deep sense of loss, isolation and incomprehension being suffered by the other. Both turn to some immediate form of numbing e
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| 7. A Period Play by Don Reid |
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If a playwright couches his play in a period other than the contemporary one in which he is living at the time of writing, he has written a 'period play'. The playwright may write such a play either by drawing on his memory of an earlier part of his life
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| 9. The Critics' Views |
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Susan Dermody, Showbusiness, September 1973
The family is found at that moment when the threats are more remembered than pressing, and there is the possibility for working over them and even understanding them, in quietness.
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